Candle Light
by Rolling Tomorrow
Summary: He let everyone believe that the headaches were simply from working too much, but he knew otherwise.


Candle Light

Small flames illuminated the tent, though they were too minute to provide any warmth. The candles flickered more than they did earlier in the night as the wax melted down. It formed pools at the bottoms of the candleholders, the sign of a night lasting longer than it probably should have.

The Chimeriad accompanied their king on the campaign to subjugate the tribe stirring trouble far north of Xian Du. They moved out from the capital once spies could confirm the report that the tribe was so eager to defend the superiority of their rule that they killed every member, including two children, of the family that questioned their rule.

The trip was too far to make in a day and the group had camped with the rest of the infantry, though their tents were in a group separate from the rest. The king's tent was always placed between the other four for the sake of security.

Wingul set his quill down momentarily to rest his forehead against his hand. The headache persisted and he closed his eyes, hoping that the absence of light might ebb the pain slightly. Before he could try anything else, the flap of his tent was pushed open without any warning.

There were only two people who would barge in with such blatant disregard to his privacy; Gaius and Agria, albeit for different reasons. He looked over to see the king's tall form leaning over slightly to come inside.

"Always well announced, Your Highness," he said dryly.

"I should have known you'd still be up," Gaius remarked. "It's late."

Gaius walked over to the low table Wingul was working at and sat down beside him. He glanced over the paperwork his tactician had completed, though it was just a quick survey rather than a proper read. He could tell be Gaius' expression that he was about to point out that all of the work he was doing wasn't that terribly time sensitive.

"There was just too much to attend to, I couldn't put it all off until tomorrow," Wingul said, trying not to sound too fatigued.

"You always make that excuse," he said as he placed a hand on his shoulder. "Get some rest."

"And why are you still up then?" he asked, before taking on a sarcastic tone. "Waiting for me?"

"Why shouldn't I be?" he asked, expression so perfectly unchanging.

Wingul just stared for a moment. "Well, I don't know. Perhaps because Jiao is one tent to the left and Presa and Agria are two to the right."

Gaius' voice barely changed when he joked, misleading a lot of people, but Wingul had worked with him long enough to pick up on it. "You won't even sleep next to me when other people are around?"

"Keep your voice down, Gaius. Agria has a very keen sense of hearing."

Wingul folded a letter, slapping the paper onto the table when he turned it over. He slipped it into an envelope and lifted up one of the candleholders to drip some wax to seal it. As he stubbornly focused on his work, Gaius leaned closer to him.

"Would you prefer I whisper?" he murmured, speaking directly into his ear.

He frowned at the feeling of Gaius' warm breath against his skin and reached for his seal. "No."

Once the wing insignia was pressed into the wax, he moved to put it away, but winced when the dull pain of his headache throbbed momentarily. He pretended to stifle a yawn instead to hide the reaction.

"So are you done for the night?"

"I suppose," Wingul said. "There's still more I wanted to get done."

"Your stand in back in the castle will be able to handle things for a few days."

"It'll still be chaos when we get back," he said warningly.

Gaius rose and extinguished the candles while a Wingul packed his work for when they would depart in the morning. The king had them all extinguished a bit sooner than he would have liked, as there were still a few more tasks he would have liked to get done. Then again, making that excuse of getting just a little more work done was usually what lead him to getting very little sleep.

As Wingul laid down, his head started to pound worse than before. He only winced slightly, trying not to visibly react, but Gaius still noticed. There was just one candle still burning, but the dim light was still enough to illuminate his reaction.

"Headache?" he questioned as he sat down beside him.

"It's not a severe one," he lied.

"Of course, that's why you're grimacing in pain."

"It's nothing to worry about," Wingul said dismissively.

He pulled the blankets up while Gaius idly folded the extra one on to over to Wingul's side, having no interest in the extra layer of warmth. If it were up to Gaius, there would only be sheets on his bed even in the dead of the winter. Gaius laid down beside him and Wingul closed his eyes as the king pulled him closer into an embrace.

"It's because you work too much," Gaius said. "It wouldn't be so bad if you'd just take care of yourself."

"I'll listen to you about sleeping enough when you go for a week without any half hour nap nights."

"We were talking about you."

"Being hypocritical to others will damage you public image," he warmed.

"You're diverting the conversation," Gaius said, sounding rather dissatisfied.

"Your image can't take another hint after you denied my commercial song."

"You got the buns you wanted on the market, isn't that enough?"

"The sales would be better with the song."

Gaius sighed, an uncommon show of defeat from him.

Making light of it was yet the best way to address Gaius' concerns. Wingul didn't bother telling him that given the area just to the right where his head was throbbing, good rest would do very little to alleviate it. It was something Gaius would eventually come to realize, but the later that happened, the better.

* * *

><p>For a fic meme over on Tumblr. The prompt was Wingul being a workaholic.<p> 


End file.
